


I Remember, But I Can't Stay Here

by MCU_Supersoldiers_Etc



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Steve gets drunk and outs himself, Steve tries to move on with his life, Steve's nightmares, Thor is not a therapist but he tries, male/male relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 05:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20501411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCU_Supersoldiers_Etc/pseuds/MCU_Supersoldiers_Etc
Summary: After a night of revels, Steve finds himself dreaming of the past, and contemplating what his future may hold... and with whom.





	I Remember, But I Can't Stay Here

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is actually from an RP. The dream sequence, specifically, was one of my replies, and I liked it so much I wanted to share it. I sort of wrote a shorthand version of bits of the RP -around- the dream sequence so it still made sense and had some of the same emotional weight to it as it did originally. 
> 
> (I don't know if my original RP partner has a handle here on Ao3, but I have acquired their permission to publish here.)

Some dreams were surreal and unpleasant. But Steve always found the memories to be worse. A broken record of the worst moments of his life, playing on repeat in the dead of night.

~

"I don’t know how they can sleep when Dugan snores like that." Steve muttered, settling in beside his best friend at the lookout point, up the hill from where the rest of the unit was camped out. He passed Bucky an open can of rations with a spoon, a peace offering for interrupting his quiet watch.

"I don’t know how he hasn't given our position away to the enemy." Bucky replied with a smirk, accepting the can. It was hazy, for a minute or two, the quiet small talk of the moment forgotten in Steve's dream. No… not forgotten. Just unimportant. He was incapable of forgetting, but dreams sometimes warped the memories, just a bit.

"So, you and Agent Carter, huh?" Bucky said questioningly, his face and his voice, and the sharp cold of the mountain air, snapping back into clarity.

"Hm? Oh. Uh... no. I mean, she's great. I just. We haven't..." Steve fumbled. His face felt hot as he flushed pink. Bucky huffed out a little laugh.

"Damn Steve, what're you waiting for? It's about damn time a woman looks at you the way I do." He said through a mouthful of stone-cold beans.

"Peggy is an amazing, I just- …wh- what did you just say?" Steve stuttered, every gear in his head grinding to a screeching halt.

Bucky blinked at him, disbelief registering on his face. "_That??_ Seriously? _That's_ what finally makes it through your thick skull?? Christ, Rogers, I've been about as subtle as a freight train about it." He scoffed.

_Oh… _

_OH. _

_Don't panic! _

_Don't think at all,_ he told himself.

He grabbed Bucky by the collar of his jacket, dragging him in for a clumsy and hungry kiss. Bucky's lips were chapped from the cold, but it didn't matter, because he was kissing Steve back. Eagerly. Calloused fingers grabbed at his golden hair, scraping across his scalp near his nape. The bitterness of the wind against his skin was suddenly nothing compared to the furnace where their mouths met. Steve craved nothing more than for this moment to last forever. For time to stop, right here. The war could rip the world to shreds, and he would only care about whether or not Bucky was still beside him.

Eventually, Bucky tugged their lips apart to steal a decent breath.

"I'm an idiot." Steve gasped.

"Too fucking right you are, punk." Bucky chuckled breathlessly.

Something made a sound in the trees not far from them, and the moment was broken, both of them snapping to high alert and jumping to their feet, back to back, guns drawn. It could be anything. An enemy scout. A sniper... A deer. Better to be paranoid than a dead man.

After a few minutes, nothing happened, and they started to relax again, sitting back down, still back to back.

"Why-" Steve whispered searchingly.

"- didn't I just say it? We had enough problems, without worrying about getting beaten to death, Stevie." He said humorlessly. Steve heard the click of a lighter, followed shortly after by a long exhale that was too thick in the air to be just Bucky's breath.

A minute later, the cigarette showed up in the corner of his eye. Steve reached back and took it, taking a long pull.

"You never looked at me that way, Steve.” he sighed. There was a hint of long-held regret in his tone. “After awhile, I gave up wondering if you were just clueless, or blowing me off as kind as you could, by playing dumb. You were still mine, either way. I wasn’t gonna mess that up. I’d rather keep you close, and never _really_ mine… than not at all." Bucky said quietly.

A minute later, Steve passed the cigarette back over his shoulder. Also dangling from his fingers, were his military-issue dogtags. He felt Bucky stiffen at his back, going still.

"I'm always gonna be yours, Buck." Steve breathed. He pretended not to feel Bucky's fingers shake when he took the tags.

"You're a hopeless sap, Steve Rogers." Bucky mumbled.

Steve heard the faint rustling of the tags sliding along the ball chain, settling into place, and going quiet beneath a layer of clothes. They sat there, watching the woods in the dark. Bucky shifted again behind him, and cool fingers fumbled at the ground until they found Steve’s hand. There was something in Bucky’s hand already. Steve didn't have to look as it was pressed into his palm. He knew they were gonna be Bucky's tags.

"Too fucking right I am, jerk." Steve grinned in reply.

They sat there in the quiet night air for awhile, willing the moment to linger for as long as it could, the metal of Bucky’s promise to Steve digging into their clasped hands. Steve checked his watch on his other wrist, the sky too cloudy to see the stars or moon to judge the time.

"I'll take the last watch, Buck. You should get some rest. We've got a train to catch in the morning." He said softly. He slid Bucky’s tags around his neck, tucking them under his uniform. Bucky turned and threw him half a salute, before heading down the hill, towards the Commando’s camp.

~

Steve jerked awake, sitting up abruptly. He sucked in a deep, shaking breath, running a hand over his face.

_ Shit._

He turned and looked back at the bed. Thor still seemed to be fast asleep. Steve gingerly disentangled himself from the sheets, getting out of bed and heading for the bathroom.

When he looked up from rinsing off his face, Thor was leaning against the doorway, watching him thoughtfully.

“I… I’m sorry if I woke you.” Steve said awkwardly.

“Bad dreams, my friend?” Thor asked softly.

Steve sighed deeply, staring back down into the sink, not wanting to meet Thor’s eye. His head pounded, a remnant of the liquor from earlier that night.

“…yeah.” Steve replied, knuckles going white where they gripped the sink.

A warm hand covered his, and Thor was beside him, a comfort Steve hadn’t known he’d needed until he’d drunkenly asked him to stay.

They hadn’t even _done_ anything. But Steve had said things he couldn’t take back, and Thor hadn’t blinked or balked. Which shouldn’t have surprised Steve as much as it had. Thor was an ancient deity of sex, after all. He didn’t have the same hangups about sexuality as a guy who grew up in the 1930s. Hell, Thor had even flirted _back_. Which was all kinds of interesting, to certain parts of Steve that didn’t get a lot of attention.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Thor’s voice came, soft and concerned.

“No.” he replied, straightening up. “I’m fine.”

Thor saw the change in him. Saw the mask slip back into place. Sighing, he brushed the back of his fingers across Steve’s cheek.

“You can’t build a dam and hope it will keep the sorrows of your soul at bay, Steve. They are not as tame as water. You cannot recover from a storm until you let it blow through you.” Thor told him gently.

Steve sighed, leaning forward to rest his head on Thor’s shoulder.

“Not tonight. Enough revelations for tonight.” He muttered, slumping a little. A strong arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him a little closer.

“As you wish. But you really should talk to someone, Steve. Watching you try and live half a life, all bottled up like this, is painful.” Thor murmured.

Steve didn’t say anything. What -could- he say? He didn’t know how else to live. He was afraid there would be no way to put the pieces back together, if he allowed himself to fall apart.

“Would you like to go back to bed now?” Thor asked.

“… Yes.” Steve replied wearily.

“Would you prefer I leave? Or do you still welcome my company?” he asked as they walked out of the bathroom.

Steve looked at his soft, _empty_ bed. The broad expanse of it somehow managed to seem intimidating in the dark. He thought of the nights when he’d dragged the blankets down onto the floor by the wall because he couldn’t stand the softness, or the emptiness.

And he thought about the little white box in the bottom drawer of the dresser next to the bed. Rusted, patina-ed, but he could still read the name on the dogtags in the box. He knew the feel of the metal beneath his fingers by heart. The only thing he had left of something that had been too little, too late. There was no going back to that moment that was so much longer ago than it felt. There was no trying to seize a future that was decades in the past.

Bucky would want him to move on… _wouldn’t he? _

“Stay.” Steve asked, barely more than a whisper.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
Obviously, if we're going by MCU canon, this would take place sometime after Avengers 1, and before The Winter Soldier.
> 
> I love writing Steve, I find him to be immensely shippable. But I always come back to Stucky. And I think this is kind of a fun way to play with the idea of Steve having different loves in his life. 
> 
> !!! This is a one shot fic. As of right now, I have no plans to expand this story to explore Steve and Thor's relationship, Steve's PTSD, or Bucky being not actually dead, any further. !!!


End file.
